Three Kingsport, Tennessee defendants sentenced over an eleven-business ERC fraud ring
Ryan Glidewell, Alyssa Glidewell and Edward Zanes, all of Kingsport, Tennessee, created at least eleven phony businesses with no employees or operations to falsely claim the Employee Retention Credit and paid Sick and Family Leave Credit, filing false returns claiming over $3.4 million, of which the IRS paid $1.8 million. All three were sentenced to federal prison between 2025 and 2026 and ordered to pay $1,806,637 in restitution.
- Year
- 2026
- Where
- United States
- Outcome
- Sentenced
- Reported loss
- $1.8 million
- Victims
- Not stated in the sources
- Schemes
- Employee Retention Credit (ERC) mill scams
- Last reviewed
- 2026-09-22
The facts, as recorded
- Ryan Glidewell led a conspiracy that created at least eleven phony businesses, which lacked any employees or operations, for the sole purpose of falsely claiming the Employee Retention Credit and paid Sick and Family Leave Credit.
- Members of the conspiracy filed numerous false tax returns for those eleven sham businesses and directed the resulting refund checks to addresses controlled by the conspirators.
- The false returns claimed over $3.4 million in tax refunds, of which the IRS actually paid approximately $1.8 million.
- Ryan Glidewell pleaded guilty on 9 July 2025 to conspiracy to commit wire and mail fraud, aiding and assisting in the preparation of a false tax return, and money laundering, and was sentenced to 84 months in federal prison.
- Alyssa Glidewell was sentenced in 2025 to 50 months in federal prison for her role in the scheme.
- Edward Zanes, the last of the three to be sentenced, received 65 months in federal prison from U.S. District Judge Clifton Corker on 14 May 2026.
- All three defendants were ordered to pay $1,806,637 in restitution to the United States and will serve three years of supervised release after their prison terms.
- U.S. Attorney Francis M. Hamilton III: "The defendants in this case exploited governmental efforts to assist businesses during a time of unprecedented uncertainty."
Why this case matters
Most ERC mill prosecutions on this page involve a single operator. This one shows the same pattern run as a small organized group, a family member and an associate, alongside the scheme’s leader, splitting roles across eleven fabricated businesses to generate refund claims that would have looked, on paper, like eleven unrelated companies genuinely struggling through the pandemic.
Eleven businesses, no employees, no operations
According to the government’s account, the eleven businesses behind the claims existed only for the purpose of filing them; they had no actual employees or operations at any point. This is the clearest version of the ERC mill pattern: not an exaggerated eligibility claim for a real company, but a claim manufactured for a company that never operated at all.
A staggered sentencing, over a year apart
Alyssa Glidewell was sentenced first, in 2025; Ryan Glidewell followed earlier in 2026; Edward Zanes, the last defendant, was sentenced in May 2026, nearly a year after the first. The restitution order was joint across all three, at just over $1.8 million, matching the amount the IRS actually paid out on the false claims.
The caveat
This is a concluded case for all three defendants. Each pleaded guilty and was sentenced by a federal judge; the facts above come from the IRS’s own published accounts of the pleas and sentences, not unproven allegations.
Sources
- Defendants sentenced to prison in COVID-19 employment tax credit fraud scheme. US Internal Revenue Service, Criminal Investigation. Accessed 2026-09-22. Supports: All three defendants' names, sentences and sentencing dates, the eleven sham businesses, the $3.4 million claimed and $1.8 million paid, the $1,806,637 restitution figure, and the U.S. Attorney and IRS-CI quotes.
- Tennessee Man Pleads Guilty to COVID-19 Employee Retention Credit Fraud Scheme. US Department of Justice, Office of Public Affairs. Accessed 2026-09-22. Supports: Ryan Glidewell's guilty plea date and the specific charges he pleaded to.